Feedback: Using Formal and Informal Assessments to Advance Student Learning

Name of Student: Anthony Silva
Grade: Middle
Topic: Physical Science (Momentum)
Inquiry/Science Practice Addressed: Designing Experiments
Type of Informal Assessment: Momentum investigation
Type of Formal Assessment:

Purpose:

Effective teaching requires assessment of student learning on an ongoing basis. For this task you will provide a description of the ways in which you conduct informal and formal assessment in your classroom. You will provide a copy of a formal assessment you used to analyze what students learned across several lessons. You will be asked to cite specific examples of what students know and are able to do based on the student work samples you provide. The analysis of what students have learned should also provide a basis for future instructional plans.

Feedback

Presentation of Assessment Artifacts

• Present - Learning objectives for the unit that your assessments are designed to address are explained.
• Present - Copy of informal assessment, including directions, evaluation rubric/criteria, answer key, and description of how you plan to use information obtained from assignment.
• Present - Copy of formal assessment and scoring criteria, including directions, evaluation criteria/rubric, an answer key, and a description of how feedback was communicated to students.
• Present - Evaluation criteria used for both informal and formal evaluation/assessment.
• Not Present - Marked copies of students' work for both informal and formal evaluation/assessment.

Comments:

• Based on the GSEs, why do you think it is important to teach about momentum?
• Do you believe that your students understand the similarities/differences between momentum and energy? You make statements like "momentum cannot be created or destroyed," but does this make sense from the students' perspectives? Aren't you worried that such statements will trigger students to dismiss what you are trying to teach them as not making sense, e.g. since the block comes to rest after it is set in motion by whatever hits it, then momentum is obviously destroyed.
• In your quiz, you state that momentum is conserved when there is no external force acting on the object. Did you mention this in your pre-lab?

Assessment/Evaluation Analysis

• Present - Description of assessments, including the range of thinking and skills required to complete the assessment successfully.
• Present - Describe how assessment criteria were communicated to students.
• Present - Explanation of what you expected to learn from assessment.
• Present - Description of what concepts from your teaching addressed by the assessments.
• Not Present - Explanation of how assessment accommodate students with different learning styles and needs.
• Not Present - Explanation of why you used the evaluation criteria that you chose.

Analysis of student performance

• Present - Description of what your assessments indicate about your students know. Cite specific examples from their work as evidence.
• Present - A summary of what what you believe each of your example students knows based on your assessments.
• Present - Aggregation of your data - Report the performance of the class as a whole on your formal assessment.
• Present - How did your students compare to the overall performance of the class.
• Present - Disaggregation of your data - Data representation showing differences between groups.
• Present - Summary of differences in student group performance.

Comments:

• Nice analysis.

Reflection

• Present - Comparison of your learning objectives for the unit with the requirements of your assessment.
• Not Present - Description of what did you learned about your instruction based on students' performances?
• Not Present - Description of what would you do differently next time you teach this unit and why?
• Not Present - Description of what will you do to improve your assessment tasks?

Comments:

• These assessments both constitute a good starting place for assessing these concepts. I like the way they complement each other, giving students a variety of ways to express what they know.
• You can strengthen each of these assignments. For the informal assessment, you can give students a chance to reflect on their experimental design to think about what variables are independent and dependent, and controls. You can also have them support their conclusions with evidence.
• For both the informal and formal assessment, you can improve them by considering the research on what students find difficult about momentum. Students have difficulty understanding the idea of "conservation," of "systems," and "open and closed" systems.
• Overall, a very thorough job!